


Rhapsody

by lydiamartincan



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Drama, Drug Use Mentioned, Gen, Underage Drug Use, affairs mentioned, alcoholism mentioned, im not sure how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 15:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13906899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydiamartincan/pseuds/lydiamartincan
Summary: Sarah is twenty six years old, stuck at home and her family has fallen apart. How is she handling all of this?





	Rhapsody

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I threw together a few years ago that I recently found. Very dramatic I guess but that's what I was going for. Constructive criticism is always welcome. I would recommend the song 'Rhapsody' by Siouxsie and the Banshees while reading, that's what this is named after.

She doesn’t know why she even bothers anymore. Ever since Sarah can remember her home has always been anything but. Home is where the heart is, where a loving family is supposed to always be waiting. A kind father and a beautiful mother, maybe a bratty sibling or two. But that was never what Sarah had. No, never.  


  
Her mother was a beauty-obsessed actress who always regretted ever having even a thought of settling down. Her father was a tramp and always strayed too far from home. Her mother would be gone for shows and a new woman every other week would be shuffled quietly into the house, hidden behind closed doors for hours on end. But on the outside it would all seem so perfect. The happy newlyweds and their adorable young daughter would smile for photos and hold the holiday parties for smiling family and friends. To everyone else they were the poster family for happiness.  


  
That is, until Linda Williams got so fed up with her two story house and cheating husband that she ran, leaving behind Sarah and any happy memory the young girl had of her.  


  
For three years it was Sarah, her father, and whatever woman caught his eye that month. Of course, Sarah was so young how could she ever think there was anything wrong with a runaway mother and a swindling father? The smiling families on the TV and at the park seemed so alien to her.  


  
Until Karen came around. And for a time it seemed like Sarah would, for once, have that shot at a happy family her classmates all boasted about.  


  
But of course, that dream was so short lived she could have gotten whiplash watching it pass by. After one year of dating and six months of marriage, Karen was pregnant and Robert was staying later and later at the office. Sarah knew Karen wasn’t stupid, she knew what was going on. The woman would have had to of been blind not to!  


  
The lipstick smears on the collared shirts, the late nights and even over night meetings. He was practically begging to get caught. But Karen never budged. She cried at night when she thought Sarah couldn’t hear her. While anyone else might have felt pity, Sarah felt hatred. How could Karen sit by and just let it happen. At least her mother had been strong about it and called Robert out on it. Karen just laid down and took it like the victim she was.  


  
It angered Sarah to no end.  


  
Toby came along then and Karen turned to something Sarah had only ever seen on TV late into the night. It was rare to see her step mother without a glass of wine or a flask tucked in the pocket of her coat. Toby got shoved onto Sarah, and before she knew it it was time for her to grow up. She was in charge of her brother while her stepmother drank herself into oblivion and her father flaunted his infidelity like it was a trophy.  


  
Their picture perfect dollhouse had always been anything but, but now it was worse than ever.  
Sarah was twenty six and still stuck at home; as eager to leave and move on with her life as she was, she was torn between running as her mother did or staying for the sake of Toby. He was already twelve and so far fallen. When she was twelve she was reading books and locking herself away in her imagination. Toby was sneaking out and throwing himself into harmful habits just like his damned mother.  


  
Twice had Sarah caught him with pot hidden in his room, and twice had Karen simply swallowed a shot of whiskey and waved it off as a childhood phase.  


  
It was in moments like that when Sarah questioned if her presence was even a helpful one anymore. Toby was gone, Karen didn’t even understand the word sober, and her father was as useless as a cracked pipe. She wondered if her constant prodding and scolding was even getting through to her brother or she was pushing him further away. But if she left who would stop him from picking up something worse; who was to say he hadn’t already?  


  
Sarah stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The last of the steam from her shower dissipating, allowing her eyes to truly see just how sick she actually looked. The darkness around her eyes causing them to look sunken in and hollow, her once vibrant green eyes glazed over while her skin looked pale, nearly translucent. It wasn’t as if she was the only one in the house without issues. Her medicine cabinet full of pills would tell anyone otherwise. At least the rest of her family had the decency to hide their sickness away. From the way she was looking now, her appearance practically screamed, ‘help I’m a manic depressive with a broken home, get me on Oprah!’  


  
One hand pressed on the edge of the counter, she raised her other hand to press the side of her palm up under her nose, sniffling once and blinking back tears. She had promised herself long ago she’d never left another tear fall over her family. It was something she should have been used to by now, something she should have been numb to.  


  
Stealing another moment to gather up her bundled nerves, Sarah yanked open the medicine cabinet, her shaking fingers grasping for one of the familiar orange bottles, dropping one perfectly round white pill into her palm. She repeated the process with two other bottles before quickly knocking back the medications and replacing them back to their designated space. From there she pulled on her underwear, bra, ratty grey t-shirt and a pair of relaxed blue jeans, hanging her towel back up on the rack.  


  
Sarah left the bathroom, heading down the stairs and walked right into the kitchen greeted by the lovely sight of Karen practically slumped back in her chair, pointer finger tracing the rim of her scotch glass, brows pulled down and a look of concentration plastered to her face. Looking towards the microwave, Sarah could see it was barely ten o’clock and Robert was, of course, still not home.  
She held back a sigh, stepping over to her step mother and kneeling down beside her, one hand gently placed on her shoulder. In the past Sarah might have lashed out, thrown the glass out of her hand and yelled about how she was the one tearing everyone apart. But Sarah wasn’t a child anymore and she knew none of this was Karen’s fault. Karen was a victim, just as her mother was. Toby was a victim. She was a victim. Hell, her father was too. No one in the house was to blame for this. They had all done it to themselves and now they had to live with the burden they created.  


  
God, how she wished she was dead.


End file.
